The Intuitive Customer - Helping You Improve Your Customer Experience To Gain Growth

Prices will never be low enough for customers. After all, have you ever got a customer survey back that said you should charge more for your product or service? Have you ever written that yourself as a customer? Of course you haven't! Who would? As you may remember, some of our listeners write in to our "I'm in a Pickle" feature of the podcast. This week we consult Peter about his business-to-business (B2B) customers that push back on price. Peter's company is not the cheapest, nor do they have plans to be, so he wants to know what he should do about this customer behavior. Too many organizations don't have a pricing strategy, even though having one is essential to your overall customer strategy. The foundational element is that you should communicate value. Without value that the customer sees, your price will never, ever be low enough. Chances are, some of you have faced Peter's problem, too. So, this episode is about customer pricing and the psychology surrounding it. Perhaps more importantly, it's about how to keep your prices high and your customers feeling like they are getting a deal. Key Ideas to Improve Your Customer Experience In another podcast, we discussed Fernando's problem regarding distinguishing a commodity from the others in the field. If you haven't heard that one, a simple summary is determining how you are different from the other suppliers is first, and communicating this difference is second. These are the same principles vital for pricing strategy. After all, nothing is valuable until a customer is willing to pay for it. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 03:21 Ryan, who researches pricing in his academic career, talks about the different approaches one can take to address pricing issues with customers, starting with communication. 05:12 Colin talks about the concept of perceived value and how no one will buy anything without it. 10:05 Ryan begins his advice for Peter by talking about how a pushback on price is often a feeling that the value provided does not justify the price, which is usually a communication problem. 13:14 Colin talks about buying an uninterruptible power supply using a metric he understood, but maybe not the most important one; Ryan explains that this happens a lot, so manufacturers should know what that easier metric is that customers use to decide. 18:00 We talk about the Curse of Knowledge, and how it can affect how we communicate about a products' features and specs instead of the benefits that customers would understand and want to know. 24:35 We also suggest that the problem might be that Peter has price conscious customers and he needs to attract a different type instead based on a podcast a few weeks ago about firing your customers. Do you have a business pickle? Tell us about it here. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 290,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for the last four years in a row. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 35,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

A lot of companies get customer segmentation wrong. Or they got it right, but they did it seven years ago. The fact is that if you have customer segments that were constructed before February 2020, you probably need to do it again. Things have changed dramatically over the past couple of years, and the customer behavior shared by your customer segments is one of them. One of the biggest problems that I see in customer segmentation, besides timeliness, is that the categories do not get into why customers buy. Often organizations choose broad categories to the segments, like how much business they represent to the organization or what type of widget they buy, to group like customers together. Segmenting your customers for targeting purposes is essential. This podcast subject was inspired by some interesting stats I read about in the consumer research team Attest's 2022 US Consumer Trends report about what different groups of customers want. Many of these stats reveal that different people want the brands they choose to communicate to them in various ways, and often these things are in stark opposition to each other. It makes clear that one message for all your customers delivered one way will be less than effective for your customer strategy. In this episode, we discuss our 5 rules to effectively target your customers. Starting with a rule that demands you accept change as a constant, we set you on the right course for grouping your customers into meaningful segments that allow you to target them with the right message that encourages them to do what you want in the way that speaks to them best. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Many times, when I discuss customer segmentation with clients, I learn that they have already done it. Excited to see what they have, I take a look, learning that many of the segments include really relevant information like fax numbers or Myspace handles. Usually, after I ask, I learn that these segments were done years ago. However, if your customer segmentation is older than 24 months, it might as well be from 24 years ago. The world has changed, and your customer segments have, too. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 03:08 I share some interesting stats from the Attest's 2022 US Consumer Trends report that create a problem for many marketers and inspired this topic for the podcast. 05:26 We share the first rule about accepting that things change, including your customer segments, so be prepared for it. 08:31 We discuss how multiple inputs help create more meaningful grouping than the vague and broad ones we often encounter that do not assist effective targeting. 11:21 Colin explains that it is essential to know what you want the target to do before you segment, which is why he considered making it rule number one. 14:06. We explain how customer behavior is the most important and the most neglected of the characteristics used to segment customers. 19:39 We reveal the final rule and Ryan explains that effective segmentation should have four to eight groupings. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 290,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for the last four years in a row. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 35,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Organizations only pay lip service to CX, and now, we have the numbers to prove it. From Zendesk's The Trends Report 2022, you can see a clear dichotomy between what people say they will do and what they will actually do regarding CX. You should read the whole report, but for starters, here are some stats I was surprised to learn (or maybe not surprised as much as interested to see it in print): 73% of business leaders reported a direct link between customer service and business performance 56% of organizations say they will focus on driving better customer experiences over the next 12 months. However, later in the report we learn: 23% of organizations said that they were looking to increase customer satisfaction. 23% said they are looking to drive stronger relationships Framing that one in reverse means 67% are not looking to increase customer satisfaction or drive stronger relationships. So, what is going on here? In this episode, Chief Technology Officer of Zendesk Adrian McDermott (@amcdermo) joins us to give his take on these numbers. For the past 15 years, Zendesk has provided tools and technologies for digital CX and worked with companies to enable agent efficiency in customer service. McDermott has been with them for the past 10 years and scaled his product development from ten people to around 1,500. He also shares what he thinks organizations should do with their experiences. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience My regular readers will remember that customers satisfaction scores across the board are falling or stagnating for most organizations. The American Customer Satisfaction Index published a report that suggested customer satisfaction was approaching a 17-year low. What's more, customers care about this dissatisfaction. Zendesk reported that 61% of customers say that they would switch to a competitor off the back of one bad service experience—and that's just one dissatisfying experience! Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 05:04 Colin goes through the stats from the Zendesk report that show the dichotomy between what organizations say they will do regarding CX versus what they plan to actually do. 08:12 McDermott shares his take on how these numbers demonstrate two problems, one on the supply side and the other on the demand side, and how organizations should respond. 19:59 We shift the conversation to discuss Customer Science, and to get McDermott's take on how these tools will help move CX forward. 23:13 McDermott explains that he thinks these tools can aid in personalization, ideally down to a segment of one individual. 26:35 We talk about the strengths of Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning in improving Customer Service efficiencies and where that is an appropriate application in customer facing interactions. 34:18 We all share our tips for taking this report's information and today's technology and doing something practical with it, proving once again that taking theory beyond the philosophy is the most significant way to make it useful in CX. This episode of the podcast was made in partnership with Zendesk. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 290,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for the last four years in a row. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 35,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

A common mistake organizations make with their experience is failing to understand customer expectations. This mistake will lead to customers feeling unhappy and disappointed—two emotions I guarantee won't contribute to your customer-driven growth. Expectations are a form of Reference Point, which people use to compare and evaluate experiences. The expectations are rational, emotional, and sensory, and are an essential companion for customers as they walk your customer journey, making them essential for your Journey Map. What's worse, we aren't meeting customer expectations, at least not according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. On a recent podcast, we explored how the ACSI is showing poor outcomes for customer satisfaction over the last ten years, a time span that make it impossible just to blame the virus. In this episode, we talk about customer expectations and why so many companies get them wrong. We will also take a look at why we have expectations and where they originate, as well as the reasons we think this way. Perhaps most importantly, we will talk about how to avoid disappointing customers' expectations when you present them your experience. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Let me start by asking if you have ever been to the Congo? Most people haven't. However, if I asked you what it might be like, what would you say? Some people might say they picture it to be a jungle country. They might use words like green, humid, or lush. Some might say dangerous or sweaty. However, in most cases, they don't know any of this stuff is true. So, how did these images and adjectives get there? My guess is these descriptions come from books or movies people might have read or seen, or stories they heard over the years in school. This exercise demonstrates how customers' expectations develop. Here are a few other key moments in the discussion: 09:33 Ryan explains the theory behind why we need to draw upon our past experiences or construct ideas about new experiences as we go about our daily lives for comparison's sake. 11:32 Colin builds upon Ryan's example about drawing upon experiences by pointing out that the past experience does not have to be in the same industry vertical to be the comparison. 15:13 Colin gets into the importance of understanding customers' emotional expectations as well as their rational ones to deliver an experience that satisfies and delights them. 22:57 We talk about how customers' expectations can change over time and can be reasonable, so it's important not to blame your problems on unrealistic customer expectations. 26:59 Colin and Ryan both share their practical advice on what to do about understanding customer expectations and how to apply it to the experience you deliver. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

The gas pump is probably where it hurts the most right now. Standing there, watching the total spin by, climbing higher than you ever have seen it before brings home the acute pain of today's inflation rate. Never mind that housing and health care have much higher cost increases over the past decades…that gas price per gallon is hard to take. Inflation has been rising steadily across the board for the past few months. So much so, that experts, who were not concerned in the beginning are starting to worry. While there is reason to believe it will peak soon, no one knows if pricing will go back down. Stephanie wrote to us about her Business Pickle that inflation is going to kill her CX. Chances are, you are facing some difficult pricing and cost concerns yourself and wondering what it is going to mean to your experience, too. This episode focuses on how you can manage the current economic environment without destroying your Customer Experience. Will our new, post-pandemic normal have a high price tag associated with it? And what does that mean for your customer experience? Key Ideas to Improve Your Customer Experience Believe it or not, from an economic perspective, all inflation is not bad. To the contrary, inflation serves the broader economy. It might surprise you to learn that the Federal Reserve Bank (the Fed), the U.S. governmental institution that manages the economy, wants inflation. However, the Fed wants a steady rate of around two percent. That slow but steady rate encourages consumer spending and investing rather than hoarding of resources (I'm looking at you, Bitcoin.). However, the inflationary rate is climbing faster than that, which is where some financial experts have concerns. So, to summarize the governmental policy on inflation: a little bit is okay, too much is concerning. Here are a few other key moments in the discussion: 03:56 We share Stephanie's pickle about how to respond to rising costs but maintain a customer-centric experience. 05:32 Ryan explains how a little inflation plays in maintaining a strong economy, and how too much of it can destroy it. 09:21 Colin shares a personal experience with inflation regarding a garage roof project he got a quote for nine months ago, which now is significantly more. 12:56 Ryan explains how inflation can affect the customer relationship and erode trust if it's not handled properly. 16:34 We share some of the things you shouldn't do in this situation, because they contribute to the erosion of trust and the degradation of your experience outcome. 21:33 We both have suggestions for how Stephanie can handle this with her customers to the best possible outcome. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Social media has brought us a lot of things, but key among them is the "Influencer." It means a person that can affect how people think and behave about things related to their area of interest or expertise. We have influencers that can teach us about makeup, sports books, stock picks, customer strategy (ahem) and, of course, wood working. (It's a thing, I promise). There are many reasons that the idea of an influencer is critical to marketers today. First of all, it is an excellent way to reach a targeted audience whose areas of interest intersect with your offering. Second, it works really well in the certain circumstances. However, you have to be deliberate about how you use Influencers, and the behavioral sciences can be an excellent guide for you. In this episode, we explore the idea of Influencers and how you can use them to promote your brand. We also talk about how to optimize your chance for success as well as critical considerations that you should apply to this essential customer strategy. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience One of the most important things to remember about influence is that it is both conscious and unconscious. In other words, there is influence that we choose and participate in on purpose and influence that we never really knew happened to us. Both kinds of influence are essential when you are designing a message for customer strategy, and should have deliberate effects they are evoking from people. Here are a few other key moments in the discussion: 04:14 Ryan explains the difference between influences that are conscious and subconscious, including the difference between subliminal and subconscious, and how that difference changes our response to them. 10:37 We talk about some famous experiments that explore this concept, including one that was fake and never happened, and one that is terrifying. 17:16 Ryan shares some examples of ways that your experience sends subconscious signals, many times in ways you didn't expect. 22:02 We discuss the essential considerations you should think about as a marketer when deciding which Influencers you should approach and how to message through them. 26:08 We share the practical ways you can use the science behind influence to leverage the power of influence in your experience and customer strategy. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Who do you feel loyal to in your life? My money is on your answer being your friends and family. The reason you feel loyal to them is because you have an emotional relationship with them. They might do things you don't like sometimes, usually at the holidays, that drive you crazy. However, you don't sever ties over it. The same emotional connection happens in business relationships. Also, like your personal relationships, they can weather a little bad news without ending them. However, for this to be the case, there are some things you need to do ensure that this relationship forms—and it probably isn't as complicated as you might think. This episode focuses on how to create these emotional bonds with your customers and foster customer loyalty. We explain why emotional bonds protect you in business relationships and how to lay the foundation for customer loyalty. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience To begin with, we borrow from a concept in Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People called the Emotional Bank Account. An Emotional Bank Account is a lot like a regular bank account where you make deposits and withdrawals. The difference is the deposits are good things that you do for your customers and the withdrawals are the things that happen that they don't like. We think that everyone should invest a lot of time making deposits into the Emotional Bank Account for that rainy day when something doesn't go the customers' way. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 01:39 Colin introduces the listener's business pickle and why loyalty is such an essential part of your experience. 05:18 We explain the concept of the Emotional Bank Account and how it applies to your personal and business relationships. 08:22 Colin shares an example of working with a construction equipment company that you would think wouldn't want to get into the touchy-feely stuff—until they learned that's what their customers wanted. 09:57 We discuss the simple way you can build up your customers' trust in you, which facilitates an emotional relationship forming with your business customers. 13:35 Colin explains how having the entire team consistent in their dealings with customers, and presenting a unified front is essential to forming an emotional bond with customers. 15:01 We explain how you should be yourself when you deal with customers because the relationship will hopefully last, and no one can keep up pretense for that long. 16:41 Ryan explains how addressing the individual's personal career goals and job responsibilities are also essential to emotional relationships in business, as well as understanding the company politics your business contact must navigate. 21:06 We explain how creating win-wins is essential, and there are times when you have to let a customer go. Do you have a business problem you would like our help with? Please contact us to tell us about it. We may solve it with you and our listening audience on the podcast! Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Ever been channel surfing and see a movie playing on broadcast that you own in your digital personal library and been unexpectedly delighted? Have you ever then watched that movie, commercials and editing and all, even though with very minimal effort you could watch that movie from streaming without any of that stuff? This episode explains why you were so happy to find the movie and why it was better to watch it that way rather than stream it yourself. It's related to the idea of serendipity, and the explanation is the result of a decade of research by Kristina Durante, (@KristinaDurante) Ph.D., Professor of Marketing at Rutgers Business School. We invited Durante to come talk with us, and much to our surprise, she accepted. However, our surprise in this instance was not serendipity. Durante says serendipity boosts our enjoyment of something because it feels like a "gift from the gods." The idea that fate has dealt you a good hand is one that makes people feel happier with Customer Experiences, even when they can't attribute that good luck to the organization providing it. She says that customers like how it feels like magic. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience Durante says that there are three main components to define serendipity. First, it must be something positive that happens. Second, it should be unexpected and unplanned. Finally, it should have no obvious source, meaning it can't be attributed directly to anything or anybody. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 02:28 Ryan introduces our guest and explains why she is on the show. 04:26 Durante explains how she became interested in serendipity after the song "Material Girl" thrilled her when she heard it on the radio, but hearing it later on her playlist wasn't the same. 07:42 Durante explains what their research defines as serendipity and how it differs from surprise or luck. 11:24 We discuss how Netflix employs a bit of serendipity in it's "Play something" feature and why it was necessary for the Netflix viewer experience. 16:28 Durante discusses how serendipity is different than surprise and how this difference is essential to boosting enjoyment for customers. 25:42 Durante talks about ways marketers can set this up for customers in their experiences, as well as some retailers that understand and employ this concept well. 32:22 All three of us share our insights into how marketers can increase the feeling of serendipity in their own experiences as well as what to avoid while doing it. Join us in celebrating our 20th anniversary over the next month. We will be giving away books and other things this month. Check out our LinkedIn and Twitter feeds for more information. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

Do you know when in your experience customers decide to buy from you or not? You should. Otherwise, how can you design an appropriate environment to get customers to decide to do what you want? It reminds me of the phrase, "Crossing the Rubicon." The Rubicon river was a northern boundary outside Rome in the ancient Roman Empire. The Senate determined if a general crossed the Rubicon with their army, that was grounds for treason. There is a famous story that as Julius Caesar crossed it with his army, he said,"Alea iacta est", which means "Now the die is cast" for those of us a little rusty on the Latin. The quote signifies passing the point of no return. This story is more than a Roman history lesson. I mention it because customers also "cross the Rubicon" when they decide things. Psychology refers to this as the Rubicon Model of action phases in decision-making, and it describes our varying mindsets before and after choosing. The deliberative mindset before choosing takes in information; the implementing mindset commits to and maybe defends the decision after choosing. In this episode, we take a look at how deciding changes our perspective on things in an experience and how we assign importance to information. We also discuss how your experience design should support and complement these mindset shifts. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience A buying decision is not the only one a customer makes. All of the little decisions that customers make are part of this mindset shift also, in varying degrees. That means plotting them and understanding when they happen is crucial. Knowing when they occur will help you determine where to design features into the experience that get them to decide what you want them to, which is the how, or critical skill of experience design and customer strategy. Here are a few key moments in the discussion: 02:15 Colin shares a marital problem he is having with his wife Lorraine about, well, picking wallpaper for their home redecoration project. 05:44 Ryan explains the psychology behind decision making called the Rubicon Model of Decision Making, and a bit of Roman history lesson about the origin of its name. 07:59 We explain how your customers essentially "Cross the Rubicon" in your experience, too. 11:49 We discuss the two mindsets of customers in decision making, deliberative and implementing. 17:16 We discuss how all the decisions along the way are also subject to the Rubicon Model. 21:07 The discussion turns into how to strategize in your experience to take advantage of the timing for customer decision-making. 27:59 We share the practicalities of applying this information in your experience design. Join us in celebrating our 20th anniversary over the next month. We will be giving away books and other things this month. Check out our LinkedIn and Twitter feeds for more information. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.

A lot of the behavioral sciences can feel intimidating. However, it doesn't have to be. The Five Rules Podcast Series is our attempt at giving you an easy entry point into the complex and messy world of Behavioral Science. Senior executives have risen to their position for many reasons, but one of them is a love for numbers. Executives live by numbers. So, you can't just have a "really great idea." It would be best if you had a "really great idea" and an idea of how it will drive numbers for the organization. I have learned a lot about how to win over senior executives. In this episode, we explore the five rules for successfully engaging with senior executives to enhance your career. I share these based on my decades-long career and constant immersion in these skills. Moreover, I share them because I have learned that if you don't engage properly with senior executives, it can have precisely the opposite effect on your career. Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience One of the overarching principles that guide your behavior when engaging with senior executives is to remember what matters to them most. So, if you're having a conversation about customer strategy, think at their level, which is a high-level customer strategy, not an on-the-ground customer tactic. We often mention getting inside the head of your customer and looking at the experience from their perspective. Now, apply that principle your upline by taking their perspective and speaking to them in the language of their decision making. Here are a few key moments in the discussion. 03:25 Colin shares the first rule, which is that everyone should have an opinion; that's what you are paid for and how you add value to the team. 08:51 We discuss how to handle an explanation with senior executives, and walking the tight rope between respect and intimidation. 13:25 We talk about how at a senior level the questions get simpler, even if the responsibility gets more intense. 18:38 Ryan explains how the fourth rule is essential, be concise, because he has seen people that cannot adapt to a changing environment, and they lose their opportunity to communicate it as a result. 21:38 Colin shares the last rule, Back up your argument with numbers and explains why these matters—maybe the most—when talking to senior executives. Please tell us how we are doing! Complete this short survey. Customer Experience Information & Resources LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on Linkedin and Twitter. Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more. How can we help? Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.